For most of his first six months on the job, EPISD Superintendent Juan Cabrera stuck to his promise not to "rock the boat" at campuses.

But over the last several weeks, district leadership has begun to introduce changes affecting both the workload of classroom teachers and the positions of central office staff.

Last week, district employees and their representatives gave the administration's work on communicating those changes a failing grade. Teachers and mid-level administrators have complained in private and during interactions with district leaders that their input hasn't been sought, while change is dictated from the top.

The staff was specifically talking about the restructuring of a central office department and about changes with campus schedules that will eliminate an extra prep period.

"Not just a deficit — I would say (there has been) absolutely zero communication between administration and the employees on the reorganization and the changes coming down that are affecting classroom teachers," said El Paso Teachers Association President Norma De La Rosa.

District leaders haven't gone entirely without interacting with campus employees. Area superintendents have begun early morning visits to each of the high schools in their feeder patterns to talk about whatever topics teachers choose.

During a visit by Associate Superintendent Taryn Bailey to Burges High School Wednesday, the staff's focus was the schedule change that will add an eighth class period each day while leaving teachers with just one prep period when they say they already have little time to complete tasks outside of class hours.

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Much of the response reflected the comments made by Transmountain Early College High School teacher Vivian Maguire to the board of managers the night before.

"To cut time from our preparation sends the lesson that what we do is not essential or valuable," she said. "Give me the time I need to prepare so I can (teach) my students."

District administrators have noted that the Ysleta and Socorro school districts provide teachers with only one prep period. And EPISD leaders think they can improve student engagement by sending teachers to assist in colleagues' classrooms three days a week during one period. The other two days they will take part in professional development although departments may tweak those schedules depending on the time of year.

By making more teachers available in the classroom — even if they don't teach the specific subject themselves — top administrators say students could receive the same benefit they would get from tutoring after school.

Although Bailey answered questions for close to an hour and even stuck around after the first bell rang to chat with individual teachers, several teachers commented as they left for their first period classes that the meeting was only scheduled after the decision had been taken by the central office.

While the schedule changes at secondary campuses didn't require board approval, after hearing complaints about how the restructuring of the curriculum and instruction department were communicated, board member Carmen Arrieta-Candelaria wondered whether administrators could do a better job getting employees to buy into policy changes.

"I understand the methodology, I understand why we're doing this," she said. "We really need to do a better job rolling this out to employees, the public and letting them know (how they're affected)."

EPISD Chief Academic Officer Ivonne Durant has talked often about how EPISD schools have functioned in recent years more as a collection of schools, rather than a unified school district. Many of the recently announced changes, such as switching middle school campuses to a uniform 8-period day or restructuring the C&I department, have been made with that focus in mind.

She said while the district will seek to improve communication with employees, many of those efforts such as meetings with area superintendents and creation of teacher committees are already underway. And she said the district move forward with changes to improve instruction.

"Any time you're venturing forth into something new, you're going to have people very scared, very concerned about it," Durant said. "When it's scary, you don't understand. When you don't understand, you don't want to understand."

At those campuses where principals are most open to new approaches, the district will have quicker success with implementing changes to instruction, she said.

"If we don't start doing things that are dramatically different for our children, they're not going to get it," Durant said. "If you want to have a more college-going atmosphere and climate, then you've got to do some things that are beneficial to students at a granular level."

Andrew Kreighbaum covers El Paso Independent School District. He may be reached at 546-6127.

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